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Gear Linkage Issue?

ajthegreat2007
ajthegreat2007
in General Ford Related Discussions

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Hello all!

I have joined here in the hopes you guys will be able to help me now, and in the future. I am a keen home mechanic and love working on my focus, which unfortunately is becoming more and more common as it's aging! Over 149k miles on her now and still going fairly well for saying how neglected she has been in the past.

My problem this time is really frustrating me as I can't find any information anywhere. Even the information in my Haynes is a tiny paragraph and doesn't really explain much! And I'm baffled by how all this works if I'm honest!

I have a 2005 mk2 Ford focus 1.8 tdci with 5 speed manual gearbox.

Recently the gear stick suddenly got really loose in the up down direction. If it's in gear you can move it all the way to nearly neutral from 1,3,5 without it coming out of gear. This also means that it sometimes refuses to engage 1st gear.

I believe his is down to the linkage, as if you love the selectors on the transmission that still feels solid, but there is loads of slack in the cable that's attached to the counterweighted selector.

My Haynes manual details how you can adjust the cables - but only the 'side to side' cable seems to have an adjuster on it?

Am I missing something? Can this cable be adjusted and why had it suddenly become this loose and sloppy. The gear selection feels like a spoon in pudding now and the gear positions are very vague in the vertical plain. Left to right action is still well defined. Could it even not be the linkage and actually be the lever on the transmission?!

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